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Consumer Multitasking = Branding Opportunity

October 02, 2008

Posted by: Keith Betz in Consumer

Multitasking refers to the ability to perform more than one task at the same time. This concept seems simple enough and most times we think of talking on a cell phone while driving (not that we recommend this), or doing your banking at the grocery store. But how many of us let this carry over to our media consumption? According to MediaDay research by MRI, almost 20% of all Internet usage is done while simultaneously watching TV. So how can you, the advertiser, take advantage of this multi-media consumption?

We think the best way to take advantage of this consumer behavior trend is to utilize consistent messaging within your media plans. Reinforcing this notion is a recent NBC study showing that brand awareness increases more than 30% among viewers when an advertisement runs on TV and the Internet, rather than TV alone. Similarly, message recall increases a whopping 41% when the ad runs in both places. This data reinforces the idea of just how significant multi-platform media plans can be to your overall campaign. For instance, by understanding what type of consumer watches TV while browsing the Internet, a marketer can use TV ads containing a web URL to drive immediate traffic to a website.

Part of what we do for our clients is to analyze this type of research and pull out key takeaways that can help drive strategy. For instance, with adults ages 25-54, males skew slightly higher than females in their usage of TV and Internet together, according to the MediaDay data. For any client of ours targeting this demo through TV & Internet, consistent messaging would be just as important a decision as the media placement itself.